Look! Look Book

Our Spring 2010 issue is enjoying such a wonderful response from subscribers we decided to share with everyone all the beautiful patterns and glamorous photography. Click here for a view of what's inside Verena Knitting Spring 2010. This Look Book is only available for one week, the link expires Tuesday April 27th at 12:01 AM. But if you subscribe now you can have the full issue including all 72 patterns as a free bonus, start your subscription with Summer 2010 and get Spring 2010 for free! Happy knitting!

Russian Join

Hello! It's good to be back, after a considerable hiatus while we worked out our new production schedule. I hope everyone is enjoying the new expanded Verena. We are now able to present many more of the patterns from the German edition in a larger format.

The shipping glitch seems to have been worked out and people are getting their Spring 2010 issues and getting busy planning Spring knitting projects. Perhaps a splurge with a tax return? As the weather warms up, those of us who cannot contemplate 6 months without knitting tend to put away the bulky yarns and start thinking about lace. We had a question in the forums about how to weave in ends in a lace pattern, so I thought I would discuss some of the options here since we have so many lace patterns in the Spring issue and more to follow in Summer. By the way, we just finished our shoot for the Summer issue in majestic Tulum, Mexico a few weeks ago, Elle magazine following close on our heels with a summer fashion shoot. I can't wait to see the pictures.

But I was talking about lace and what to do with the ends of the yarn when you don't have a skein long enough to knit an entire garment. If you've already completed the knitting and have ends to weave in, keep to the thicker areas of the pattern and leave some ease as you go, since you'll stretch the lace when you block it. Leave a long tail, you'll notice it's much shorter after blocking. Weave it in a bit more after blocking just for good measure and trim. If you're knitting with something that felts, there is always the tried and true graft, or spit splice. But if you're knitting in a light, summery cotton or rayon, what can you do?

A Russian Join is the answer here. As you come to the end of a ball, thread the end of your yarn through an embroidery needle about the same thickness, or less, as your yarn, leaving a fairly short tail. Take your needle and go through the yarn loosening the plies, and weaving back through for a couple of inches.

Pull your needle through the yarn, leaving a small loop where it doubles back on itself. Pull the end all the way through and tug on the ends to smooth out the doubled area.

Be sure to keep the loop on the end open.

Thread the end of your incoming ball onto the needle and through the loop you just made at the end of the outgoing yarn.

Repeat the same procedure with the end of the new ball of yarn.

Smooth out the yarn by tugging gently on the ends to close up the loops.Trim the ends on the diagonal so they blend better.

  

This may sound fidgety and complicated, but it's one of those things that is far worse in the describing than it is in the doing. The yarn I used here is Rowan Classic Siena, fingering weight mercerized cotton. In a springier yarn the doubled area would be even less visible. The join is very strong, all but invisible once knitted and well worth the effort for continuous knitting of non-animal fibers with no ends to weave in. Try it next time you have to join a new yarn and let me know how it goes!

We would like to correct the misspelling of Muench on the Resource page in our Spring issue. They carry many of the lovely buttons featured in our button article. Visit their website, http://www.muenchyarns.com/ for yarn, buttons and more.

If you haven't yet subscribed to Margery's newsletter I encourage you to do so. She started Knitbits for Berroco back in the day, which is now one of the most widely read newsletters in knitting. She recently visited the craft show in Handarbeit, found Verena to be the most widely read knitting magazine in Europe and generally got to see things from the other side of the water. 

NY Sheep and Wool Festival, Yarn Crawl

The NYC Yarn Crawl was a great success by all accounts! The stores I visited had long lists of raffle entries and new visitors. I hope everyone who participated made some wonderful new discoveries. It's amazing how different yarn stores can be from each other isn't it? Did you participate? Tell us about your experiences by leaving comments! Check their website for the winners of the raffle baskets and the Scavenger Hunt.

 

In other news, I visited the NY State Sheep and Wool Festival this past weekend at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds. This was my first visit to the Sheep and Wool festival and it was an eye-opener! So many knitters roving around, fondling yarn and comparing their hauls. I had a wonderful time just sitting on a bench after a delicious lunch and watching all the incredible handknits on parade. I also really enjoyed visiting the animal area, I saw the cashmere goats lining up for inspection, and got to see loads

of fiber on the hoof.











There were spinning wheels and spindles and every fiber working tool you can imagine in hundreds of vendor booths, not to mention yarn. And yarn. And knitters. Knitters fondling yarn. Knitters buying yarn. Knitters knitting on the Big Sock.

Of course, I bought some yarn myself. I had been looking for some black merino to make my husband (who will only wear black) a sweater with and you'd be surprised how hard that was to find. There was so much hand-dyed, hand-painted, yarn calling out for attention in booth after booth.  We had to listen carefully for the soft baritone of the black. And after several hours of focused searching we finally found some lovely, resonant black merino from Oasis Farm Fiber Mill.

Once that was out of the way I was able to move on to the hand-dyed variegated breeds. I must honestly say I wandered around in a daze for quite a while, unable to make a choice since I couldn't just take everything home. I did not follow the good advice from Ravelers about making lists of projects to buy yarn for. I did set myself the limit that I would buy from vendors who don't have stores and whose yarn I could only get at an event like this. Luckily, as I was passing the Silver Moon Farms booth a hank of indigo dyed Merino threw herself in front of me and said "Take me home!" So I picked her up and starting looking around at her sisters. The single-color variegations were subtle and velvety, and the hand painted sock yarns (two colorways shown here) are downright inviting. The deeper I went into the booth, the more skeins of yarn leapt into my arms. They cried when I tried to put them back on their displays or threw themselves to the ground. It was Sunday afternoon and perhaps they were getting desperate. Eventually my husband came to rescue me from the assault, but in the process was solicited by a hank of Orchid merino. A color I can only describe more technically as FUCHSIA. This is the son-of-Johnny-Cash who will only wear black (see above.) Of course, Orchid came home with us too, snuggled up with her sisters Indigo, Eclipse and Dragonfly Wings.

More Fall Patterns

As promised I've scored a few more images of patterns from the Fall Issue. I think I need to knit this one for my mischievous little guy...

We have some great, classic designs for men in this issue:

And some bold ones for women. I love this tweedy coat. And this long cardigan, too.

Fall issue will be available online and in subscribers mailboxes next week! Come join us in the forums and let us know what you're planning to knit.

Fall Issue Preview, Yarn Crawl Scavenger Hunt!

As Val is getting ready to send things off to the printer, I've been able to sneak a few pictures off her desk long enough to upload them here. These designs are all by Margery Winter of Winterdesign for Filatura di Crosa. The Fall Issue has many more classic sweaters for Men, Women and Children, as well as trendy, eye-catching designs for the more daring. It will be available online October 5th and finding it's way to print subscriber's mailboxes the same week. Bookstores should have it on their stands the following week.

I also have an update from the NYC Yarn Crawl coming up on Columbus Day Weekend: they've added a Scavenger Hunt sponsored by Mason Dixon Knitting and Blue Sky Alpacas. Kay will stash a dishcloth in plain sight in each of the participating yarn stores. The first person to email a correct list of the exact placement of each dishcloth in every store to nycscavengerhunt@gmail.com will win a Blue Sky Alpacas Knit Quilt Kit. 28 skeins of bulky alpaca/merino yarn to make a 45" x 66" quilt. That'll keep some keen-eyed knitter busy and warm for a while! I'm planning to prowl the yarn stores myself, taking pictures and meeting people. Hope to see you there!

Fall Peek, Greenberry House review

The Fall knitting season is upon us, I've just got my first glimpse of the Fall issue and it's a beauty! The subscribers only designer interview and pattern for this issue is the incomparable Kaffe Fassett, and I've managed to sneak a picture of the pattern from Val's desk to show you here.

I've actually been doing a fair amount of lurking around the office, looking for interesting things to put up here while we wait for the Fall issue to be ready. Watch this space for more pictures and other goodies.

The NYC Yarn Crawl is getting closer. If you're going to be in the NYC area over Columbus Day Weekend (a beautiful time to be in NY) you should check it out. We have over a dozen yarn stores participating (some of them truly amazing, but I won't name names) where you can enter to win a gift basket with enough knitting goodies to keep you busy all winter.

And while we're on the subject of amazing yarn stores, I'd like to share one I found over the summer. I was driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped in the tiny town of Meadows of Dan Va, because I liked the name so much. For the record the Blue Ridge Parkway is strung with interesting names like beads in a lace shawl: Banner Elk, Peaks of Otter. It's like poetry on the map! In any case, dinner time was approaching and the farmer's market beckoned. On my way across the street I spotted a little shop with that dangerous word, YARN, on the window. So I stuck my head in the door long enough to interrupt the knitting group and know that I needed to come back the next day for a longer visit.

I love to visit local yarn shops when I'm traveling because they're always so individual in their selections, it's more like visiting a friend than shopping. Even when the yarns are more or less the same ones I can find at home, their arrangement in the store is usually so different, not to mention all the demonstration pieces on display, that I get new ideas just looking around. Whomever's in there is usually very friendly and I've gotten some great tips for other places to visit or eat locally from fellow knitters. No online experience can really come close. So when I looked in the door, I had expected a yarn shop with an assortment of yarn that reflected the sensibilities of the owner and the people who shop there.

But Greenberry House is a different animal entirely. Here Leslie Shelor has created a true gem of locality in her corner of the world. All the yarn and fiber is the work of local artisans and farmers from Western Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. It is an inspiring collection of fiber. Spinners will find everything from raw fleece to hand dyed roving ready for the wheel. Knitters and crocheters will find hand spun yarn in a glory of colors and weights. Leslie Shelor is a spinner herself, raising her own Angora rabbits whose fur she spins into lovely hanks of yarn. Because she is a fan of Bluegrass music all the colorways are named after Bluegrass songs.

I couldn't resist and came home with all there was of "Mary Ann" a seductive blend of Angora from her own rabbits, dyed in variegated purples and blues and plied with natural black Shetland wool. It will make something lovely when I find just the right pattern. In addition to a temptation of yarns she has fiber working tools from spinning wheels to knitting needles and crochet hooks along with needle cases, notions and almost anything else you are likely to need to play with your yarn.

Any knitter planning to leaf peep along the Blue Ridge this fall will be well rewarded by a trip to Greenberry House. And if you can't get to Meadows of Dan yourself, surf your browser on over to her website where you can learn more about the artisans and farmers she works with as well as buy yarn and spinning fibers.

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